Bolitho said, `No time to change into uniform, Martyn. We'll go as we are.'
Both he and his friend were dressed in mixed clothing which they had borrowed from chests and cupboards throughout the house. In a house which was, and had always been, a home for sea officers, there was naturally a plentiful supply of spare coats and breeches.
They were ready to leave in fifteen minutes. From drowsy relaxation to crisp preparedness. If the Navy had given them nothing else, it had taught them that. The only way to stay alive in a ship-of-war was to stay vigilant.
Horses clattered on the stones outside the doors, and Bolitho asked, Who is the lad who found the body, John?'
Pendrith shrugged. `The smith's son.' He made a motion with his finger to his forehead. `Not all there. Moonstruck.'
Bolitho kissed his mother on the cheek. Her skin was like ice.
`Go to bed. I'll be back soon. Tomorrow we'll send someone to the magistrate in Truro, or to the dragoons.'
They were out and mounted before the swirling snow made their journey more difficult.
There were few lights to be seen in the town, and Bolitho guessed that most sensible folk were in bed.
Dancer called, `I suppose you know most people hereabouts, or they know you? That's the difference 'twixt here and London!'
Bolitho tucked his chin into his collar and urged the horse through the snow. Fancy Pendrith remembering about the dory. He and his brother had been competing with each other. Hugh had been a midshipman then, while he had been waiting the chance to join his first ship. Their father had been beside himself with anger, which was unusual. Not for what they had done, but because of the worry they had given their mother. It was true too that he had beaten them both to make them remember it.
Soon they heard the sea, rumbling and hissing against the headland and the necklace of rocks below. It was eerie under this mantle of snow. Strange shapes loomed through the darkness, while trees shed great pieces of their white burden to make sounds like a footpad running through the night.
It took all of an hour to discover the cove, which was little more than a cleft in the solid rock with a small, sloping beach. The smith's son waited for them with a lantern, humming to himself and stamping his feet on the wet sand for comfort.
Bolitho dismounted and said, `Hold my horse, Martyn.' The animal was nervous and restless, as horses often were in the presence of death.
The corpse lay on its back, arms outflung, mouth open.
Bolitho forced himself to kneel beside the dead revenue man.
`Was he like this, Tim?'
`Aye, zur.' The youth giggled. `I was a-lookin' for…' He shrugged. 'Anythin'.'
Bolitho knew all about the local blacksmith. His wife had left him long ago, and he. sent his weakminded son out of his cottage whenever he was entertaining one of his many female visitors. It was said that he had caused the boy's mind to go by hitting him as a baby in a fit of rage.
The youth said as an afterthought, ''Is pockets is empty, zur. Nary a coin.'
Dancer called, `Is it the man, Dick?'
Bolitho stood up. `Aye. His throat's been cut.'
The Cornish coast was renowned for its smugglers. But the revenue men were seldom injured in their efforts to find and catch them. With the squire away, and without his additional support as local magistrate, it would mean sending for aid from Truro or elsewhere.
He recalled the gamekeeper's words and said to Dancer, `Well, my friend, it seems we are not free of our duty after all.'
Dancer soothed the restless horses. `I thought it too good to last.'
Bolitho said to the youth, `Go to the inn and tell the landlord to rouse some men. We'll need a hand-cart.' He waited for his words to sink in. `Can you manage that?'
He nodded jerkily. 'Oi think so, zur.' He scratched his head. 'Oi bin 'ere a long time.'
Dancer reached down and handed him some money. `That's for all your trouble, er, Tim.'
As the youth stumbled away, chattering to himself, Bolitho shouted after him, `And don't give it to your father!' -
Then he said, `Better tether the horses and give me a hand. The tide's on the make and we'll lose the body in a half-hour otherwise.'
They pulled the sodden corpse up the shelving beach, and Bolitho thought of other men he had seen die, yelling and cursing in the heat and din of battle. That had been terrible. But to die like this man, alone and terrified, and then to be thrown in the sea like some discarded rubbish seemed far worse.
By the time help arrived and the corpse was taken to the church, and then they had all gone to the inn to sustain themselves, it was almost dawn.
The horses made little noise as they returned to the house, but Bolitho knew his mother would hear and be waiting.
As she hurried to greet them he said firmly, `No, Mother. You must go back to bed.'
She looked at him strangely and then smiled. `It is good to have a man in the house once again.'
2. The 'Avenger'
Bolitho and Dancer entered the front door, stamping their boots free of mud and snow, their faces and limbs tingling from a brisk ride across the headland.
It had all but stopped snowing, and here and there gorse or shrub were poking through, like stuffing from a torn mattress.
Bolitho said quietly, `We have company, Martyn.'
He had already seen the coach in the yard where Corker and his assistant were tending to a fine pair of horses. He had recognized the crest on the coach door, that of Sir Henry Vyvyan, whose sprawling estates lay some ten miles to the west of Falmouth. A rich and powerful man, and one of the country's most respected magistrates as well.
He was standing by the crackling fire, watching Mrs Tremayne as she put the finishing touches to a tankard of mulled wine. She had her own receipt for it, with carefully measured ingredients of sugar, spice and beaten egg yolk.
Vyvyan was an impressive figure, and when Bolitho had been much younger he had been more than a little frightened of the man. Tall, broadshouldered, with a large hooked nose, his countenance was dominated by a black patch over his left eye. From above his nose, diagonally across the eye socket and deep into the cheek bone was a terrible scar. Whatever had done it must have clawed out the eye like a hook.
The remaining eye fixed on the two midshipmen, and Vyvyan said loudly, `Glad to see you, young Richard, an' your friend.' He glanced at Bolitho's mother who was sitting by the far window. `You must be right proud, ma'am.'
Bolitho knew that Vyvyan rarely spent his time on useless visits. He was something of a mystery, although his swift justice against footpads and highwaymen on and around his estates was well known and generally respected. He was said to have made his fortune privateering against the French and along the Spanish Main. Others hinted at slavery and the rum trade. They were all probably wrong, Bolitho thought.
It was strange how unreal the revenue man's death had seemed as they had ridden hard along the rutted coast road. It had been two nights since they had stood by the corpse with the smith's moonstruck son, and now with a bright sky to drive the shadows away from the snow and the hillsides, it had all become like part of a bad dream.
Vyvyan was saying in his deep voice, `So I says to meself, ma'am, with Squire Roxby an' his family enjoyin' themselves in Bath, an' the military away disportin' themselves like dandies at our purses' expense, who better than meself to get over to Falmouth an' take the strain? I see it as me duty, especially as poor Tom Morgan was a
